Manchester House was always a staunch member of Manchester's fine dining club.

The front runner in the will-it-won't-it Michelin star race, it was launched back in 2013 with Aiden Byrne - once the youngest chef to win a Michelin star at the age of 22 - at the helm.

Then Byrne departed, off to the heady new heights of D&D's 20 Stories, leaving bright young talent Nathaniel Tofan in charge.

Tofan bowled in with bold ideas and bold flavours, but it was short-lived. In 2018, Living Ventures announced it would be closing Manchester House and Artisan and in swooped Aiden to reclaim his first-born.

It's now going by Restaurant MCR, but what else has changed?

Chef Aiden Byrne at his Manchester House restaurant in Manchester city centre

From first impressions, nothing at all. Entry is still gained through an anonymous-looking door into an office building, before a lift whisks diners up to the restaurant.

Inside, the decor is much as it has always been. Rust-red beams, parquet flooring, tables that are just about big enough to fill the cavernous space but a little too big for dinners to ever feel intimate.

The huge open kitchen remains, as it should. It helps to garner an understanding of the amount of intensive labour that goes into every bite, and it's nice to see the man who proudly puts his name to the restaurant toiling away with his chefs.

On a Tuesday evening, there are only a few couples in here. Thankfully, the staff are wise enough to act busy, rather than hovering nearby waiting to whisk plates away.

The first to arrive is a sweetcorn macaroon topped with wafer-thin slivers of scallop, a clutch of caviar, and a few sprigs of bergamot. In tiny bites it's a little too sweet, but a big greedy mouthful that gets as much caviar in as possible does the trick.

There's also a nori tapioca crisp with seaweed and kale emulsion - as inaccessible as this sounds, it's essentially a posh prawn cracker, salty and light and a great snack to kick things off with.

Next up come a little duo of croquettes, standing proudly like pillars on a glue of puree. For meat-eaters, it's pig's head croquettes with smoked apple; for vegetarians it's cauliflower cheese with truffle - both great, but gone in a split second and forgotten not long afterwards.

Both menus feature the same third course, a jumble of earthy mushrooms and Jerusalem artichokes in a pretty leaf-shaped bowl. It's understated and gorgeous, though not entirely without bugbears.

There's an artichoke skin crisp on the side that's reminiscent of the hard bit you get after leaving your roast potato in the oven a smidge too long, and the nasturtium leaves dotted on top are, on a practical level, too big for the minuscule fork - you have to perform an origami fold to get it safely to your mouth. I'm being picky, but at these prices I can afford to be.

While Byrne's chicken butter remains as exceptional as ever, the bread itself is another irritant. A small boule of robust sourdough is carved into four quarters, and while the flavours are excellent, it's a nightmare to actually eat . Why would anyone choose to gnaw on an awkward wedge when you could cut it into slices, like absolutely everyone else?

Ribblesdale goat's cheese storms in next, in flan form with Jabugo ham on one side of the table (good enough to convert even a non-goat's cheese fan after a few comically cautious nibbles), while on the other side it's presented in a theatrical frozen sphere that melts away when a hot goat's cheese and onion soup is poured over. With this course, Restaurant MCR has peaked.

Rhubarb parfait is fine but it's not up to the show-stopper pudding standard of The French or Moor Hall. The pale pink layers of creamy dessert are hiding behind a razor wire barricade of rhubarb glass and meringue (I nearly choke on a rhubarb shard, because I am greedy). The advertised cardamom and orange flavours are both distant breezes but after the butter-heavy mains, it's a light and pleasant enough end.

Light and airy Manchester tarts (Image: Manchester Evening News)

A couple of fantastic weeny Manchester tarts finish us off; springy sponge cases with a light cream and coconut filling.

There's competent cooking in Restaurant MCR, and spades of it. But while there are plenty of swings at memorable, revolutionary dishes, too many just miss the mark.

Manchester's elusive Michelin star dangles ever closer, but it still feels ever so slightly out of reach.